For more than a decade King’s Park politician Tom Harris was at the heart of the Labour Party.

Now the former MP is releasing a book that examines what he believes to be the demise of the party he loves and which he feels “has been taken over by something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

Ten Years In The Death of the Labour Party is released tomorrow and begins with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision not to call a snap general election in 2007.

“People forget that Gordon Brown was popular for a while, and there was a lot of speculation about an early general election,” says Mr Harris, who served as the MP for Cathcart and then Glasgow South from 2001 until 2015, representing King’s Park, Castlemilk and Croftfoot as part of his ward.

“He had encouraged people to spread that rumour, and then, just to dumbfound everyone, he decided against it.

Last year’s snap general election resulted in some additional writing to cope with the subsequent fallout, with Mr Harris, who now works in PR and as a political commentator, admitting he was surprised at Labour’s better than expected showing.

“I got that one wrong, as did most pundits. In our defence Labour’s annihilation was based about precedent and political logic and none of those things matter now.

“However the Labour party as it currently exists is not the Labour I loved – the party of Attlee and Wilson and Blair is dying.

“That party would not be a safe haven for anti-Semites and it would not use bullying against office holders, or plan to hold a post-election defence review to get rid of Trident.

“I cannot equate these things with what the Labour party should be.”

A Labour Party member since the early 1980s, the former MP still has hopes the party will move back towards the centre ground, but admits it is increasingly unlikely.

“I keep hoping and praying something will turn up to take the party back into the mainstream. I haven’t given up all hope but it is increasingly a lost cause.

“It feels as if the party has been taken over by something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That party may well go on to win an election but it is not the Labour party I would think of.”